12 ms·

Why is wind not getting the same love as solar? Wind has a more proven track record than solar. Entire modern industrialized European countries have run on pure

Why is wind not getting the same love as solar? Wind has a more proven track record than solar. Entire modern industrialized European countries have run on pure wind energy for several days at a time. If we could store and share that energy across borders we probably have the answer to most of our energy problems. In the 2010s the efficiency of solar cells have been so exaggerated that some scientific journals felt it was necessary to enforce rigorous checklists and guidelines on that topic: https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2015.233 https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2015.233

jopsen 5y ago
Do we really need to store wind energy? Why not just have more capacity than we need, and a grid to redistribute it.
- the_gastropod 5y ago
  One of these things is orders of magnitude more complicated than the other.
- simon1573 5y ago
  We have that in Sweden. The problem is distributing it. Most energy in Sweden is produced up north, but the infrastructure to transfer it south is lacking which (especially this winter) is resulting in ridiculously uneven kW/h prices in our country.
  - jopsen 5y ago
    But building put transfer capacity is a known quantity. I would think energy storage is harder to solve than building more transfer capacity?
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    Just to clarify. This is pretty much all hydro and not wind, big wind parks in northern Sweden will be built though.
- simiones 5y ago
  It's very hard to estimate the realistic minimum wind generation for an entire grid, I believe (same goes for solar). Sure, 0 wind for 1 month across an entire country is unrealistic, but how low could it go, and for how long, and how often would such an event happen? You can't just leave critical infrastructure like power generation up to chance, even for once-in-a-century events. You must always have some kind of buffer to make sure there is no chance you will have to shut down industry and hospitals for a week (barring maybe war conditions).
- oneoff786 5y ago
  What if you need energy when there isn’t much wind?
sschueller 5y ago
Wind produces noise, has moving parts that require quite a bit of maintenance, too much wind and the breaks are applied, too little they don't turn, they require a very large foundation made of an enormous amount of concrete and may cause issues with birds depending on location. Additionally small wind mills don't make economic sense and that is why they are getting bigger and bigger. This limits where you can install them and make the approval process a huge burden. Compare this to solar which can be installed on almost any size house. We can easily store this energy with hydro storage and hydro damns. Hydro storage is an amazing thing as it requires very little maintenance and can go from 0 to 100% in seconds which is great for areas that require a lot of power in a short amount of time. Even nuclear power doesn't have such a quick ramp up/down.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > Wind produces noise Don't live in the middle of a grain field surrounding a wind turbine then. Seriously, I live around tons of these and you can't hear it until you get near and they're almost always in the middle a field or between several fields, so you can't really get near. Are there louder ones in different countries that can be heard further away or something?
  - sschueller 5y ago
    Noise doesn't only affect humans.
    - elric 5y ago
      Funny how people are suddenly concerned with other species when a wind turbine is placed near their home. But when an out-of-sight coal plant belches out tons of pollutants which affect thousands of species, that concern seems to vanish. Quaint.
      - Smithalicious 5y ago
        The discussion is comparing solar to wind, nobody is suggesting coal as an alternative, so this complaint seems out of place.
laxmin 5y ago
Consistency of wind is a huge problem - seasonal, directional, intensity, etc
marmarama 5y ago
If you've got the land area and the sunshine, solar PVs are cheaper than wind, it's that simple. Wind is a better fit for Europe where there are far fewer sunshine hours but fairly constant wind due to macro-scale atmospheric weather patterns. With that said, the cost of PVs is dropping so fast - faster than wind power - that I expect solar to become more important in Europe as well. Even in northern latitudes, solar farms are popping up on land that was previously used for agriculture, and I expect this trend will accelerate. If you're a landowner, you can potentially make more money using the land to generate electricity with PVs than with agriculture.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  >Wind is a better fit for Europe where there are far fewer sunshine hours You mean Northern Europe.
barcoder 5y ago
India gets a lot of sun
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I think it's genuinely because wind is a pretty mature technology, lighter-than-air turbines notwithstanding. We know what a state-of-the-art turbine costs, what it produces, and we can make a good estimate of its useful life. There's just not much for a capital allocator to do in the wind space. Solar still has startups and experimentation, so there's at least the perception that as a capital allocator it's possible to pick winners.
morphle 5y ago
Wind energy is mechanical,in 2021 it costs around $0,06 per kWh, it will not get cheaper than $0,035 per kWh (quote Saul Griffith of Makani power). Solar photovoltaics cost $0,01 per kilowatt hour in 2021 and will get two orders of a magnitude cheaper in the next decades. This cost projection is based on physics. Why would you be interested in more expensive sources?

jopsen 5y ago

Do we really need to store wind energy? Why not just have more capacity than we need, and a grid to redistribute it.

the_gastropod 5y ago
One of these things is orders of magnitude more complicated than the other.
simon1573 5y ago
We have that in Sweden. The problem is distributing it. Most energy in Sweden is produced up north, but the infrastructure to transfer it south is lacking which (especially this winter) is resulting in ridiculously uneven kW/h prices in our country.
- jopsen 5y ago
  But building put transfer capacity is a known quantity. I would think energy storage is harder to solve than building more transfer capacity?
- cinntaile 5y ago
  Just to clarify. This is pretty much all hydro and not wind, big wind parks in northern Sweden will be built though.
simiones 5y ago
It's very hard to estimate the realistic minimum wind generation for an entire grid, I believe (same goes for solar). Sure, 0 wind for 1 month across an entire country is unrealistic, but how low could it go, and for how long, and how often would such an event happen? You can't just leave critical infrastructure like power generation up to chance, even for once-in-a-century events. You must always have some kind of buffer to make sure there is no chance you will have to shut down industry and hospitals for a week (barring maybe war conditions).
oneoff786 5y ago
What if you need energy when there isn’t much wind?

sschueller 5y ago

Wind produces noise, has moving parts that require quite a bit of maintenance, too much wind and the breaks are applied, too little they don't turn, they require a very large foundation made of an enormous amount of concrete and may cause issues with birds depending on location. Additionally small wind mills don't make economic sense and that is why they are getting bigger and bigger. This limits where you can install them and make the approval process a huge burden. Compare this to solar which can be installed on almost any size house. We can easily store this energy with hydro storage and hydro damns. Hydro storage is an amazing thing as it requires very little maintenance and can go from 0 to 100% in seconds which is great for areas that require a lot of power in a short amount of time. Even nuclear power doesn't have such a quick ramp up/down.

guerrilla 5y ago
> Wind produces noise Don't live in the middle of a grain field surrounding a wind turbine then. Seriously, I live around tons of these and you can't hear it until you get near and they're almost always in the middle a field or between several fields, so you can't really get near. Are there louder ones in different countries that can be heard further away or something?
- sschueller 5y ago
  Noise doesn't only affect humans.
  - elric 5y ago
    Funny how people are suddenly concerned with other species when a wind turbine is placed near their home. But when an out-of-sight coal plant belches out tons of pollutants which affect thousands of species, that concern seems to vanish. Quaint.
    - Smithalicious 5y ago
      The discussion is comparing solar to wind, nobody is suggesting coal as an alternative, so this complaint seems out of place.

laxmin 5y ago

Consistency of wind is a huge problem - seasonal, directional, intensity, etc

marmarama 5y ago

If you've got the land area and the sunshine, solar PVs are cheaper than wind, it's that simple. Wind is a better fit for Europe where there are far fewer sunshine hours but fairly constant wind due to macro-scale atmospheric weather patterns. With that said, the cost of PVs is dropping so fast - faster than wind power - that I expect solar to become more important in Europe as well. Even in northern latitudes, solar farms are popping up on land that was previously used for agriculture, and I expect this trend will accelerate. If you're a landowner, you can potentially make more money using the land to generate electricity with PVs than with agriculture.

wintermutestwin 5y ago
>Wind is a better fit for Europe where there are far fewer sunshine hours You mean Northern Europe.

barcoder 5y ago

India gets a lot of sun

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

I think it's genuinely because wind is a pretty mature technology, lighter-than-air turbines notwithstanding. We know what a state-of-the-art turbine costs, what it produces, and we can make a good estimate of its useful life. There's just not much for a capital allocator to do in the wind space. Solar still has startups and experimentation, so there's at least the perception that as a capital allocator it's possible to pick winners.

morphle 5y ago

Wind energy is mechanical,in 2021 it costs around $0,06 per kWh, it will not get cheaper than $0,035 per kWh (quote Saul Griffith of Makani power). Solar photovoltaics cost $0,01 per kilowatt hour in 2021 and will get two orders of a magnitude cheaper in the next decades. This cost projection is based on physics. Why would you be interested in more expensive sources?